#21- Genuine happiness consists not in pleasurable feelings

[Administrator]

Complete Question Explanation

Assumption. The correct answer choice is (B)

In this stimulus, the author concludes that the “happy life, in fact, tends to be the good life.” This
conclusion is heavily dependent on how the author defines these terms. The author defines genuine
happiness as “one’s sense of approval of one’s character and projects,” rather than as consisting of
pleasurable feelings. And the author defines “the good life” as a morally virtuous life rather than as a
life of material well-being.

However, there is a link missing in the author’s argument. The author concludes that the happy life
is the good life because the author equates “one’s sense of approval of one’s character and projects”
with a “morally virtuous life.” But the argument does not provide any support for treating those
concepts as being the same.

This is an Assumption question. Our prephrase is that the correct answer choice will tell us that a
morally virtuous life is connected to one in which a person has a sense of approval of the person’s
character and projects.

Answer choice (A): Although the author said that the “good life” is not defined as one of material
well-being, that position does not require that material well-being is incompatible with the good life.

Answer choice (B): This is the correct answer choice, because it ties together the previously
unlinked concepts of living a morally virtuous life and having a sense of approval of one’s character
and projects.

Answer choice (C): As with our discussion of answer choice (A), just because “genuine happiness”
does not consist in pleasurable feelings does not mean that viewing your own character and projects
with approval (i.e., living the good life), tends not to result in pleasurable feelings.

Answer choice (D): Remember that our job in an Assumption question is to find the answer choice
that contains information required for the conclusion to be valid. Here, the conclusion was that “the
happy life, in fact, tends to be the good life.” The goal of people who strive for material well-being is
irrelevant to that conclusion, not required for its validity.

Answer choice (E): This answer choice seems closer to something that the author may agree
with. However, it is not something required by the conclusion. Consider the answer choice using
the Assumption Negation Technique, by which we can test the answer choices in an Assumption
question. If this answer is required by the conclusion, then once it is negated it will attack the
conclusion. Here, we can negate this answer choice by saying that “material well-being does
increase one’s sense of approval of one’s character and projects.” This negation has no effect on the
conclusion, because it does not attack the notion that the good life is one in which a person has a
sense of approval of this or her character and projects.

[jennie]

Thanks for the explanation! It's very helpful! Does this question show that statements do not necessarily need to follow formal logical forms? The logical structure of this statement seems quite loose.

[Rachael Wilkenfeld]

Hi Jennie,

That's a really good point. Not all stimuli will be formal logic or have conditional reasoning. This one does not have the sort of strong language we'd expect in a conditional relationship, but instead, uses words that indicate a looser relationship, like "tends."

Hope that helped!
Rachael

[akanshalsat]

I'm still very confused about this question... I chose E and I'm not seeining the "gap" and how it is being connected. I feel like when there are many sentences and the main premise that we have to work with and the conclusion is separated by another irrelevant premise I get super confused when it comes to necessary assumption questions. Could someone please break this down for me in detail? I feel like for these questions I go with my intuition and haven't seen myself get them right with consistency under timed conditions. I understand the basic principle behind necessary conditions but get mixed up with words and then answer choices confuse the heck out of me!!

Please please help!!

[lsatnoobie]

I am not Powerscore Staff but I can offer my help as I’ve spent a lot of time on this question.

What’s our task here? To find the necessary assumption. This means that the correct answer choice MUST be true in order for the conclusion to be valid. The best way to approach a NA question is to identify the “new term” the author includes the conclusion that doesn’t exist in the premise. For NA questions, there will almost always be a new idea, new phrase, or a new concept that’s nowhere to be linked to in the premise. We have to find the answer choice that bridges the premise to this new idea in the conclusion. We call this the “Bridging type”.

The conclusion here, once you parse out all the extra info, states “Happy Life is the good life, and the good life is the morally virtuous life.” All the other stuff is fluff. For example when the author says “good life is understood not as a life of material well being but rather...”, the author is trying to clarify, albeit vaguely, that what good life REALLY is is NOT wealth but rather virtuous morals.

But morally virtuous life is nowhere to be found in the premise. Thus, as mentioned, we need to connect the existing premises to morally virtuous life. The existing premise we are given is “one’s sense of approval of one’s character and projects”.

This leads us to B.

A is wrong because the author says good life is NOT material well being, but rather morally virtuous life. This doesn’t mean morally virtuous life requires the REJECTION of wealth. That’s too strong.

[nealaguo]

For the following question, my main concern is: what is a technique for accurately picking out the conclusion for these types of elongated arguments, and furthermore, understanding why it is the conclusion? Additionally, I am also struggling with correctly picking out where the gap in this argument is supposed to be. I know it is supposed to be equating approval of one's character with a morally virtuous life, but I don't fully understand why this is the gap.

"Genuine happiness consists not in pleasurable feelings but instead in one's sense of approval of one's character and projects. Thus the happy life, in fact, tends to be the good life, where the good life is understood not - as it usually is these days - as a life of material well- being but rather as a morally virtuous life."

I confidently and wrongly decided that the conclusion had to be something like: "a happy life is when you are morally virtuous, not when you are materialistically fulfilled".

That led me to choose the wrong answer, E. I justified my answer choice by reasoning that negating E would mean that "material well being DOES increase one's approval of one's character and well being." To me, this negated E wrecks the argument because that means the author is wrong in saying that a happy life is not when you are materialistically fulfilled, which I feel is crucial to the conclusion even though the answer says it's not.

[nealaguo]

I also can't really see why B is the right answer.

If you negate B, then you get: "people who approve of their own character and projects tend not to lead morally virtuous lives."

But, doesn't this just make an observation about how ppl tend to act?

Doesn't the conclusion still stand: the way to be happy is to be moral?

[Dave Killoran]

Just fyi, we have specific forums for the questions on each test. For LR for PT 72, those are here: lsat/viewforum.php?f=481

In this case, there's a discussion of this problem already ongoing there: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=10647

Same for your other question, about #12: lsat/viewtopic.php?t=6753

Please check those out and see if they help. Thanks!

[nealaguo]

Oh I see, thanks Dave!

[Dave Killoran]

Oh I see, thanks Dave!

Great, glad to have helped! If those didn't clear it up, feel free to post your question onto the end of those threads. Thanks much!